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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

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For my first "kitless" pen, I decided a twist pen would be a great starting point. No threads to mess with, no caps to lose, and so on.

For the twist mechanism I used a transmission from a slim, flipped upside down to power a Parker-style refill.

I took the two "A" tubes from the same slimline kit and butted them together in the long poly resin blank. The blank is cast poly resin in green and black. I named it "Alien Blood".

Once the tubes were glued into the long blank, I turned the whole thing round on the mandrel then cut a tenon down to the tube at the end.

The nib is made from 5/8" aluminum rod from the BORG. I drilled a hole for the writing tip (7/64" I think... Can't remember from here) then a 7mm hole most of the way through to stop the refill spring as well as mount on the brass tube I exposed on the barrel.The nib I glued onto the exposed tube with 5 minute epoxy, then turned the whole thing between centers. This gave the nib a seamless fit onto the poly blank, and was super easy.

The finial houses the transmission. I drilled a 7mm hole and glued in a short bit of tube to press fit the transmission. The finial is then pushed onto the barrel with the transmission friction fit holding it together.

It's a weighty pen, with excellent (surprisingly) balance. Very easy to write with. The only downside is the spring on the refill tends to push the finial up out of the tube over time. I tried cutting some of the spring off to weaken it, which helped. But isn't perfect.

Next incarnation of this design will use the nib threaded onto the barrel instead of glued, and the transmission will be glued in place. This should eliminate separation of the assembly with use.

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